Top 10: Unsolved Crimes

From the Princes in the Tower and Jack the Ripper to the lesser-known case of the body in the wych elm tree, Nige Tassell presents the evidence in ten of the most putrid – and perplexing – felonies in history

Sometimes the crime is right under the police’s nose. In 1888, while the new headquarters of the Metropolitan Police were being built at the original site of Scotland Yard in Whitehall, a grisly discovery was made – the dismembered remains of a young woman had been locked in a vault. While police ruled out a connection with the Jack the Ripper murders occurring elsewhere in the capital at the same time, they were able to match the remains with a severed arm that had previously been found on the muddy banks of the River Thames. The identities of both the victim and murderer were never known.

TABLOID GOLD A sketch published in Police News

DIAMONDS AREN’T FOREVER

Crime in the name of equality?

In May 1960, while staying in rented accommodation near Elstree Studios during the filming of The Millionairess, the Italian actress Sophia Loren was robbed of £185,000 worth of jewellery. The jewels were never recovered, nor was anyone ever tried for the crime, even though credible suspects made themselves available – two notorious cat-burglars, Peter ‘The Human Fly’ Scott and Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones, both claimed credit for the theft. Scott believed he had been “sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us”.